


window shopping

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: KNBxNBA, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 04:41:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18024893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: “I was young and dumb and attractive,” he says. “You were, too.”





	window shopping

They’re at someone’s beach house. Daiki rolls his shoulders. It’s Ross’s beach house, because he’d won MVP, won them the whole damn championship last night--no, the sun’s rising behind him, the night before. Tonight was just dressing; they all knew it but they’d played it out anyway, and he’d gotten more minutes than he’d deserved for an aging star still waiting on that first trophy. 

Worth the wait; he’d said as much to Ryouta in the locker room after Ryouta had dumped three bottles of champagne on his head and asked him facetiously (not that there would be any other way when you’d won your first championship in your second season and always played for a perennial contender instead of having to drag your team to a first-round exit in a tough eastern conference). And then he’d said it to the press, not too careful not to badmouth Cleveland, but whatever. Bad karma can’t take this moment away from him. 

His head had been spinning from the vodka in his stomach and the heat of the room and the smell of flavored vape and expensive cigars, and somehow Ryouta had found him and pulled him out before he’d felt too queasy, handed him a bottle of Powerade, and walked him out on the sand. They’d watched the water as the sky began to grow lighter, and said nothing, and Daiki had replayed the moments in his head, holding the trophy and posing for photos, his two-hand dunk in the dying moments of the game.

He and Ryouta had won at the Olympics together, years and years ago, and Daiki’s mind keeps coming back to that. When they were the stars, the young and fresh faces of tomorrow and today, and when Daiki had wanted, more than anything, to fuck Ryouta in their shitty hotel room wearing nothing but their gold medals. And he’d almost taken Ryouta’s hand and kissed him, almost asked him, had locked eyes with him and almost not let go. 

Daiki had stuffed the moment back inside of itself; he’d let his obvious attraction lie and dry up, until, like a sponge soaking Ryouta up, it had come alive all over again when he’d left the Cavs and signed here with the Warriors, from the first day of training camp all the way through the grind of four long playoff series. 

And he and Ryouta are still friends, closer friends than ever--Ryouta had gotten Daiki this job; Daiki had passed to Ryouta first and foremost and Ryouta had returned the favor; Ryouta trusts Daiki’s financial people with his investments and Daiki had trusted Ryouta’s real estate broker to find him his apartment here. 

“Hey,” says Ryouta. “Thinking about something?”

“The Olympics,” Daiki says, and Ryouta grins back at him, and the thread of the thought hangs in the air like a high arcing shot. “And how much I wanted to have sex with you then.”

The admission doesn’t surprise Ryouta much. He leans back, slightly, and scans Daiki’s face before looking away.

“I always wondered,” Ryouta says, staring straight out at the waves. “Why you didn’t try to have sex with me. It was pretty obvious you wanted to for a while.”

His eyes flicker back to Daiki and, yeah, fair. Daiki’s never been subtle; a lifetime of being able to either force his way through everything like a blunt battering ram or ignore it completely has allowed him that. But Ryouta wants an answer here, and Daiki’s got no reason not to give it to him.

“I was young and dumb and attractive,” he says. “You were, too, but you were you, and there were other young, dumb and attractive people I could have sex with and not have much at stake. Like...would you have done it with me?”

Ryouta snorts. “What do you think?”

“Probably,” says Daiki, without hesitation, and Ryouta doesn’t contradict him.

“It’s like,” Daiki starts, and then stops (he used to be so good at putting images to his thoughts; he still does it but this is harder, harder to see and pin down, like the way he’d first thought of Ryouta all those years ago). “First off, I didn’t know that then. I was pretty insecure. But...I’d wanted you so long that the idea of having you was something that I was used to having, and the real you...what if it was bad? What if you wanted to be fuckbuddies, or date me? What if I’d wanted that? I was secure in being your friend, and in wanting you from behind a wall.”

Ryouta kicks his foot. There is no pity in his eyes, nothing that says he’s about to tease. Daiki knew there wouldn’t be; at this point he trusts Ryouta too much to think that, trusts him too much not to tell him the truth. 

“I didn’t want to fuck it up again,” says Daiki. “Like I’d fucked it up with you and Satsuki and Tetsu and my parents and everyone else, and I’d gotten another chance…”

“You’re not fucking it up now.”

Ryouta shifts his weight onto one side, leaning closer to Daiki, and Daiki can still feel the heat of Ryouta’s skin next to his foot and--oh. 

“Do you want to have sex now?” he blurts out.

Ryouta throws back his head and laughs, clear and beautiful, his hair catching the light. He’s laughing at Daiki, and Daiki’s fucking ruined whatever serious mood they had, but Ryouta looks gorgeous and, well, it is kind of funny. 

When Daiki finally catches his eye, Ryouta leans in deliberately again. This time, Daiki waits. His lip twitches, but Ryouta’s thumb brushes under his chin, tilts his head, and kisses him. His lips are soft and taste like that stupid cucumber water Ross swears by, pleasantly cool. Not like what he’d imagined, alone in some hotel room or crammed in a disgusting shower after practice (he’d had a terrible imagination when he was younger), but to compare it is irrelevant, especially because this is better. Because the pressure against his lips is real, and the smell of champagne and skin products is real, and when he pulls back he doesn’t need to squeeze his eyes closed tighter to see Ryouta’s face in front of him. 

“Daiki,” Ryouta says. “I love you, but I’m not having sex with you in the sand.”

Daiki pulls himself to his feet and holds out his hand to pull Ryouta up. “Sober enough to drive?”

“Yeah,” says Ryouta. “I drove us here, remember?”

Daiki kind of does, fumbling in the dark for the lever on the side of the passenger seat to make it go back and drive it into their rookie guard’s kneecaps (he’s short; he could tuck his feet up or put them on someone’s lap), Ryouta’s hand on the radio dial, his other on the steering wheel, windows halfway down. 

If they were twenty-five again, if Daiki were still hopelessly, obviously thirsty for Ryouta, he’d probably be going down on him before the door closed behind him. He’s no beacon of maturity, and he still wants Ryouta, but years have taught him patience. He’s waited for this championship; he can wait a little longer to get back to Ryouta’s condo and onto that stupid California king Daiki’s always teased him about. 

(“Still don’t like the bed?” Ryouta says, when he pushes Daiki down on it.

The mattress is soft as hell, and he’s sinking in as Ryouta’s hand runs up Daiki’s still-sandy thigh and Daiki can’t even make any of the sarcastic remarks that had landed on the tip of his tongue only to suddenly vanish. So he reaches up to pull Ryouta’s face down to his, fingertips brushing the barely-there stubble on his cheeks.)

**Author's Note:**

> it's been, probably 5? years since i thought about aokise this deeply wow 
> 
> i still have a soft spot for them in my heart


End file.
